Capture of Shusha

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Capture of Shusha


caption= Gagik Avsharyan's restored T-72 tank stands as a memorial commemorating the capture of Shusha.
partof=the Nagorno-Karabakh War
place=Shusha, town in Nagorno-Karabakh
date=May 8, 1992 – May 9, 1992
result=Strategic Armenian victory
combatant1=flagicon|Nagorno-Karabakh Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
flagicon|Armenia Republic of Armenia
combatant2=flagicon|Azerbaijan Republic of Azerbaijan
flagicon|Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Chechen Volunteers
commander1=Gurgen Daribaltayan
Arkady Ter-Tatevosyan
commander2=Elbrus Orujev
Elkhan Orujev
Shamil Basayev|strength1=1,000 troops, including the crew members of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and helicopters
strength2=Unknown amount of infantry, tanks, complemented by a battery of BM-21 "GRAD" artillery
casualties1=Over 100 according to Armenian sources
casualties2=Unknown, AFP puts toll to as high as several hundred|

The Capture of Shusha (Lang-hy|Շուշիի ազատագրումը, the Liberation of Shushi; Azeri: "Şuşanın işğalı", the Occupation of Shusha) marked the first significant military victory by Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. The battle was part of a larger territorial land dispute with the predominantly Armenian population in Karabakh who, aided by the neighboring Republic of Armenia, gained independence from the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The battle took place in the strategically vital mountain town of Shusha (known as "Shushi" to Armenians) on the evening of May 8, 1992 and fighting swiftly concluded the following day after Armenian forces captured and drove out the defending Azeris. Armenian military commanders based in Nagorno-Karabakh's capital of Stepanakert had been contemplating the seizure of the town after a hail of Azeri military bombardment had begun shelling the city.

The seizure of the town proved decisive: Shusha was the remaining military stronghold that the Azeris held in Nagorno-Karabakh. Its loss would mark the turning point in the war and lead to the series of military victories by Armenian forces in the course of the conflict. [Chorbajian, Levon (2001). "The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh: From Secession to Republic". New York: Palgrave MacMillan, p. 141 ISBN 0-3337-7340-3] Armenian writer Markar Melkonian remarked that "the capture of Shusha would go down in the annals of local lore as the most glorious victory" in the first half of the war. [Melkonian, Markar (2005). "". New York: I. B. Tauris, p. 219 ISBN 1-85043-635-5]

Background

In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over seventy years inside the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR. Following its government's decision to secede from Azerbaijan and unify with Armenia, the conflict erupted into a larger scale ethnic feud between Armenians and Azeris living in the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azeris vied to take control of Karabakh with full scale battles taking place in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning government. [Durch, William J (ed.) (1996). "UN Peacekeeping, American Politics, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s". New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 444 ISBN 0-3121-2930-0]

The advanced weaponry of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, fighter jets and helicopter gunships bought and used by both sides illustrated the aftereffects of the free-for-all weapons vacuum created upon the disintegration of the Soviet Union. A large scale population shift had also been in effect since the conflict began with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan and Azeris in Armenia trading places. The battle was preceded by the controversial capture of the town and the location of Karabakh's only airport in Khojaly by Armenians in February 1992. With the loss of Khojaly, Azeri commanders had been redirecting the rest of their firepower upon Stepanakert from the ridge on Shusha. [United States Congress. "Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Hearing Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation". Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. US GPO, 1993 p. 81]

tepanakert under siege

The town of Shusha overlooked the capital from the south and was hence a suitable location for shelling Stepanakert. An old fortress with high walls, the town was five kilometers (four miles) away from Stepanakert and perched on a mountaintop with limited vehicular access to reach it. The mainstay artillery platform used in the bombardment, which began on January 10, 1992, was the Soviet built BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, a modern variant of the widely used World War II weapon, the Katyusha. The GRAD launcher was similar to the Katyusha in that it did not have a guided missile system and hence the location of where it would hit was difficult to determine. Dubbed "flying telephone poles" due to the shape of their long, shaped charges, the missiles caused devastating damage to buildings including the destruction of residential houses, schools, the city's silk factory and maternity hospital. [cite news
last = Wines
first = Michael
title = Trying to Tell a Truce From a War
pages = 1.8
publisher = The New York Times
date = May 27, 2001
url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0811F63C580C748EDDAC0894D9404482
accessdate = 2007-03-14] The shelling had begun in the late winter of 1992, and by April it was noted that "scarcely a single building [had] escaped damage in Stepanakert."Carney, James. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975278,00.html Former Soviet Union: Carnage in Karabakh] "TIME Magazine". April 13, 1992. Retrieved September 10, 2006.]

Once the region's Communist Party headquarters and largest city with a population of 70,000, the fighting and shelling had driven away nearly 20,000 of its residents and forced the remainder to live underground in basements. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day. Many soldiers and civilians were killed or maimed daily by the projectiles as the bombardment was notoriously indiscriminate. On February 23, ten servicemen in the Russian-led CIS 366^th Motorized Rifle Regiment (of the 23rd Motor Rifle Division, 4th Army) headquartered in Stepanakert, tasked with maintaining peace between the Armenians and Azeris, were injured and one was killed in a bombardment by the artillery units. [fr icon Davidian, David. [http://www.crda-france.org/fr/8environnements/1turc_strategie/karabaghmilitaire.htm CRDA - VIII - Karabagh: Situations militaro-diplomatique] . Centre de Recherhes sur la Diaspora Arménienne. Retrieved December 26, 2006.] Altogether, over 2,000 people were killed and thousands more injured in the bombardment in 1992; moreover, the city's infrastructure was completely severed with the destruction of sewage networks, water pipes, gas and electricity. [Melkonian. "My Brother's Road", p. 205]

In addition to the shelling, the Azeri military also launched air raids and staged several ground attacks on the outskirts of Stepanakert in hopes of later moving on to capture the city itself. While they were staved off numerous times, the city's leaders complained that military action had to be taken to relieve it from the continuous bombardment. On April 27, the military leaders' plans were approved to move in and capture the town.

The battle

Preparation

Planning for the military operation began under the auspices of Colonel-General Gurgen Daribaltayan. Due to the strategic position of Shusha, the town could be easily defended and so a direct attack by Armenian forces was not a viable option for Daribaltayan. Instead, in conjunction with the commander who would lead the troops into Shusha, Arkady "Komandos" Ter-Tatevosyan, they devised a strategy of launching several diversionary attacks against the adjacent villages to draw out the defenders of the town. In the meantime, the forces would encircle and cut off the town from further reinforcements. [de Waal, Thomas (2003). "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War". New York: New York University Press, pp. 177-178 ISBN 0-8147-1945-7]

Prior to the launch of the offensive against the Shusha citadel, Ter-Tatevosyan's forces had been concentrating an artillery barrage from several directions for several weeks in order to "soften up" the town's defenses. [Melkonian. "My Brother's Road", p. 218] Since late February, the Azeri military had been reinforcing Shusha's ridge and had been shuttling in helicopters in order to evacuate the town's civilian population. By May 8, Armenian forces had amassed a force of nearly 1,000 fighters to storm Shusha.

The offensive

In the twilight hours of May 8, Ter-Tatevosyan directed his forces to assail Shusha from different directions and attack its flanks and its rear so as to avoid the ridge facing Stepanakert which was the town's most easily defendable location. The primary contingent of the attacking force was made up primarily of foot infantry but was complemented by at least four tanks and two attack helicopters. Amongst the Armenians who took part in the taking of the town was the future President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan. Entrenched in Shusha was the Azeri commander Elbrus Orujev who commanded a force of several hundred men and tanks. Due to the proximity of the attacking forces, the GRAD launchers were rendered largely useless in their role of defending the town. Despite the numerical inferiority of Orujev's forces, his troops managed to initially fend off against the Armenians who were already scaling the town's cliffs. Orjuev's men were bolstered by a Chechen volunteer force led by guerrilla warlord Shamil Basayev who were among the last to leave the city. [de Waal. "Black Garden", p. 179. Basayev would later remark that the only defeat he and his battalion had suffered had been against the Armenians in Karabakh against the "Dashnak battalion".]

By mid-day, the fighting in Shusha had escalated full-scale as both sides were participating in fierce combat amongst Shusha's battered streets and near its communications tower. [Dahlburg, John Thor. [http://www.latimes.com/ Armenians Attack Karabakh City] The "Los Angeles Times". May 9, 1992. p. 29. Retrieved September 11, 2006] A famous encounter that took place between the two sides was when an Armenian T-72 tank, the first to enter Shusha, encountered its Azeri counterpart on the northern approach of the town. As the two exchanged fire the Armenian tank, manned by Gagik Avsharyan, was hit by several rounds by the opposing T-72 and knocked out of commission. Avsharyan's tank was armed with obsolete HEAT rounds, which thus made them ineffective against the armor of the other tank. Two of the tank's crew members were killed but Avsharyan survived. [de Waal. "Black Garden", pp. 178-179. The commander of the Azeri tank, Albert Agarunov, a Baku Jew, was killed several days later and later hailed a hero in Azerbaijan.] By the evening of May 8, Armenian forces had destroyed three of the GRAD launchers and captured the remainder of the battery. Within several hours, the defenders had been forced to retreat to the town's southernmost tip.

By May 9, Armenian forces were firmly in control of Shusha. At the battle-scarred Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, they discovered that the Azeris had converted the church into a storage area for the GRAD ammunition. Overwhelmed by the attacking force, Orujev ordered his forces to retreat and abandon the citadel. Casualty counts were estimated to have been over a hundred on both sides. [The commanders of the battle both give conflicting data: in an interview, Ter-Tatevosyan stated that his forces lost 58 men in contrast to the Azeris' 200 while Orujev disputes the figures for the former figure as being much higher and estimates his own losses at 159 dead and 22 missing in action: op. cit. in de Waal, "Black Garden", p. 314]

Political fallout

The capture of Shusha ushered many Armenians living in Stepanakert and elsewhere in Karabakh to supplant the majority Azeri population living there before the battle. Several days following the offensive, Armenian forces launched an attack in the region of Lachin and opened up a five mile corridor connecting the enclave to Armenia proper. The offensive prompted two attacks by Azerbaijan's military. One was concentrated on taking back Shusha on on May 11 and the other was further south in Martuni. Despite earlier claims made by Azerbaijan's defense ministry to having taken back Shusha, the offensive had failed. In the Armenian defended front of Martuni, Armenian forces also turned back a retaliatory Azeri offensive while at the same time inflicting heavy losses. [Melkonian. "My Brother's Road", p. 219]

On the day of the Armenian victory, Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrossian and then acting Azerbaijani president Yagub Mamedov were present in Tehran, Iran to sign a cease-fire agreement. News of the Armenian offensive led Mamedov to charge that Armenia had already failed to honor the cease-fire. Ter-Petrossian however contested that he was unable to control what the Armenians in Karabakh were planning. The loss of Shusha later led to mass demonstrations in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku against newly reinstated president Ayaz Mütallibov. Charged for failing to defend the cities of Shusha on the 9^th and later Lachin on the 18^th, he was forced to step down. Many Azeris were in a state of affliction and disbelief due to the loss: the town had been the birthplace for Azeri composers, poets and musicians and many felt that the town's capture had been betrayed or sold for political purposes. [Goltz, Thomas (1998). "Azerbaijan Diary: A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic". New York: M.E. Sharpe, p. 185 ISBN 0-7656-0244-X] In a television interview in 2000, Basayev discounted these theories and contended that the town's defenders had simply abandoned their positions. [de Waal. "Black Garden", p. 181]

After the war ended, Avsharyan's T-72 tank was recovered and repaired and currently stands as a monument in Shusha. May 9 is now celebrated in Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as the "The Day of the NKR’s Defence Army" and "The Day of Liberation of Shusha." [Nagorno-Karabakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [http://www.nkr.am/eng/gov/prazd.htm Holidays and Memorable Days of the NKR] .] A commendation medal was also awarded by the government to those Armenians who participated in the battle. The city has become one of the central items involved in the negotiating process in peace talks since the war ended in 1994. [Bertsch, Gary (1999). "Crossroads and Conflict: Security and Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia". London: Routledge, p. 170 ISBN 0-415-92273-9]

Turkey's reaction

Armenia's western neighbour, Turkey, took umbrage after Armenian troops had captured the town. Süleyman Demirel, Turkey's prime minister said that he was coming under intense pressure by the Turkish people to send military help to Azerbaijan. The two peoples are ethnically and culturally related. Demirel however decided not to heed their calls partly because the commander of the CIS forces based in Caucasus, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov had warned that such an incursion would lead to "the verge of a third world war, and that cannot be allowed." [Goldberg, Carey. [http://www.thestar.com Turkey warned of 'world war'] . "Toronto Star". May 21, 1992. pg. A18. Retrieved September 12, 2006] The Armenians' victory in Shusha had many Turkish officials accusing Armenia itself of seeking to invade the Azeri exclave of Nakhichevan.

An even louder proponent for armed action came from Turkey's own president Turgut Özal. While he continuously advocated aiding Azerbaijan and threatened Armenia, his minority political party was unable to materialize the support.

Fifteenth Anniversary

On May 9, 2007, Armenia and the NKR celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the town's capture. The festivities included, among other things, a military parade in Renaissance Square in Stepanakert and a cross-country marathon organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation's youth wing that began from Armenia and ended in Shusha during the run up to May 9. During the processions, president of the NKR Arkadi Ghukasyan, reiterated the citizens of the republic would have the final say over its future. [Danielyan, Emin. [http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2007/05/9F3BFB8D-515C-4AF9-91B2-CEB3022BB903.asp Karabakh Leader Demands ‘Final Say’ In Peace Talks] . Radio Free Europe. May 9, 2007. Retrieved May 12, 2007.]

The parade was headed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army's first deputy commander, Major General Movses Hakobyan. Attendants of it included veterans of the battle and the Nagorno-Karabakh war and veterans from the Second World War since May 9 also marks Victory in Europe day.

In Armenia, prime minister Serzh Sargsyan inaugurated the naming of a square in the capital of Yerevan after Shushi.

ee also

*Nagorno-Karabakh War
*Shusha

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.nkr.am/eng/gov/Image14.jpgMedal awarded to Armenian participants of the battle]
* [http://masis.tv/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/gid,60/Itemid,252/lang,ru/ hy icon Masis.tv - Liberation of Shoushi (documentary)]